Stop That (Thunder)bus

Just hoping for a bit of advice from some different perspectives if possible.

My two regular opponents play Space Marines of various flavours and almost all iterations of their lists involve Thunderbus Terminators ripping up whatever they choose, doing their hero thing despite overwhelming odds time and again. My poor Steel Legion boys are just left almost everytime sorting their lives out and counting the survivors.

To date I've managed to bring two down via CAP/ Hydras and a few have bounced due to bad dice. My army list process now involves a Rough Rider bubble for each main fighting formation but with the Guard's 2+ Initiative any failure to retain and move both units together equals an opening for the bus to do it's thing with monotonous certainty.

Ive tried building some of the strongest target formations (Mech Inf, Russ platoon, Griffon battery + Hydra) but they still get turned to a fine paste.

I don't want to have to castle up and move at a snail's pace incase the Riders fail to activate and keep up but any advance seems to have it's head stoved in from a falling sky.

What do you do to dissuade/destroy/mitigate the damn 'bus?

Teleporters Ive learned to deal with as you know they have to come in at the start of the turn if they're coming but the bus arrives at a moment's notice whenever there's an opportunity....

Instead of building stronger formations for them to destroy try more cheap formations. End game activations are what win games. Make them use 600 points to take out 3-400.

Garrisoned infantry companies help lay BM's before the assault if your Hydra or TBolts can't get there. How many of those do you have on average? I usually play with 3 Hydra upgrades and 3 TBolt formations.

With AA protection/overwatch and a commissar in a target formation you should be up by 4 in resolution before dice are rolled (no BMs against BMs, outnumbering twice over).

I can pretty much always get a blast marker on them on their way in, either with a Hydra (if the target formation can't have one as an upgrade i'll keep a battery nearby) or with my Thunderbolts that wait the whole fame for his bus no matter what his Bolts are doing. Each Mech formation and the Shadowswords also have their own Hydra.

I usually have one infantry company babysitting my artillery on overwatch with a hydra.

They almost always have a Chaplain themselves and my +3 advantage rarely goes further than their 5 3+macro, 4 3+ CC attacks (plus bus).

Basically. If they jump back in, the brick misses the opportunity to disengage and has to stay in the board. This was an early rule change to prevent what was called the eternal air assault which became a gimmick.

_________________He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

Yeah, if we didn't see that ruling for a year or so either (till we went to a tournament.) being the victim of a terminator merry go round isn't much fun! :-)

I can't say I'm any good with guard, but the key seems to be to accept that at least one unit will be thunderhammered but the next one will shoot the termies and bus into dust. If you're at an activation disadvantage (which is likely) then over watch. At the end of the day numbers should see you through.

But like I say, I can't get used to defensive play - waiting for the enemy to come to you know it's gonna hurt (for both sides) is agonising, but seems vital with guard.

make sure your infantry are bunched up in hard cover, to hopefully offset his regular CC attacks as much as possible, unless he's prepped the formation, if you're on OW then assuming the chaplain cancels out the commissar, you'll start at +4 res, between the OW fire and firefight attacks, you're reasonably likely to kill a stand, which will often mean you're coming out ahead, or on an even rolloff

the other option is to stick some chimera mounted ogryns in the formation, you can countercharge 10cm +5cm dismount which is usually enough to get into BTB then you can stick some MW attacks on the termies which are much more likely to hurt them

if that fails, hanging out on OW with a pair of shadowswords, back to back with each over covering the deployment zone, or overwatching vultures can often deter the assaults or make him engage in a less favourable way

I've been playing marines for a good few years now and would rarely take on a guard infantry company without prep and support....

Thanks for the advice guys. It must be my friend's dice rolls then unfortunately as he seems to be able to air assault a near full strength (plus upgrades) Reg HQ company with horrific results more times than not if they get the opportunity.

The worst one was when the termies came in last activation of 1st turn, destroyed my Reg HQ and then won initiative and ate my Baneblades for elevenses before i could pull them out.... And 2 stands of Terminators left to receive their chest full of medals each....

Yeah ill try just writing a different kind of list that doesnt have such neon signed target formations. At the moment I'm spending roughly 600 - 750 points on recon to bubblewrap my main units so maybe i can spend some of that on units to plug the inevitable gap in the line.

Ill post my current list when i get home tonight. If you could have a look and see if there's any glowing mistakes I'm making that would be fantastic.

Thanks again lads. My poor Guardsmen will be thankfull (as long as their not the ones getting eaten by the bus of course )

Not specific to the thunderbrick termie flying powersmack but I find throwing some ogryns into my Baneblades really helps them out by being an ablative shield and can counter charge attackers. The poor sad Baneblade really just doesn't work well in the EA game in comparison to it's brothers.

_________________He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

I'm quite taken with the Baneblade to be honest even with the E UK stats. I was finding that my Russ company was suffering too much due to blast markers and as long as you have an objective near the middle line so they can reach it Baneblades make a lovely one-two with a Mech company as both want to be in 30cms for full effect. Shadowswords are fantastic but maybe as long range single snipers than a company but my opponents havent ventured into Titan territory yet so that will probably change things.

Ill try some Ogryns thanks. Make him think twice about engaging if nothing else

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